


Paint the Town Green

by iamdemosthenes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Drabble, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, Post-Season/Series 02, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 00:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11024970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamdemosthenes/pseuds/iamdemosthenes
Summary: It was Matt’s birthday.At least, if she’d done the calculations right.orIn which Pidge wallows and Keith cheers her up.





	Paint the Town Green

**Author's Note:**

> This is NOT the first Voltron thing I've written but it is the first Voltron thing I've posted. My friend November is the main author of this, and I just beta'd it pretty much. We absolutely love platonic kidge so, this is pretty self indulgent.

Pidge sat at the kitchen counter gingerly fingering the photo in her hands. The photo from when things were okay, when her family was whole, when no one was lost in space. It had once given her hope, but as weeks crawled past and turned to months, it had become a painful reminder of the loss. Idly, she flicked a torn edge between her fingers. 

It was torn just like their team, when Shiro had disappeared, leaving them all in shock. She remembered the pure agony etched across Keith’s face when the team had entered the empty cockpit of the Black Lion. Allura’s stunned silence, and the sense of dread in the air. The way her stomach sank to her feet at the idea of losing someone else.

But that wasn’t what had brought her to the kitchen at one in the morning. No, she hadn’t gotten over it all yet, but what was crawling inside of her at that moment like a writhing worm was sadness.

It was Matt’s birthday.

At least, if she’d done the calculations right. 

And here she was. Just like on the day of the announcement of the failure of the Kerberos mission, and when Matt’s birthday had come to pass in the year that followed, she sat in silence. She thought of her mother, millions of miles away, doing the same. Pidge wondered if Matt knew it was his birthday, wherever he was. She dragged a hand across her face, wiping away the moisture there (not that anyone would see, she was alone, and the kitchen was only partially lit) before it could join the dried stains on her face. The lump in her throat felt like a tight knot. She let out a deep breath, along with some of her tension, just as the door hissed open behind her. Her chair squeaked as she whirled around to see who dared interrupt her wallowing.

It was Keith. His shirt was drenched in sweat from one of his late night training sessions, and his gaze met hers for only a moment before he turned his attention away and quietly headed for the cupboards. Pidge was grateful for his silence, not really caring if it was out of courtesy for her or just Keith being Keith. She still scolded herself for forgetting the team’s habits, though; she should’ve gone to the stardeck. That was a much more suitable place to have a late-night cry than the center of activity that was the kitchen.

Still, she scowled at him as she watched him, covering her nose with her sleeve and wishing for a tissue. Keith, at least, seemed content to let her be as he filled a cup at the refrigerator. Oddly enough, the Altean variant took just as long to fill a sixteen ounce glass with water as its Earth counterpart. She made a mental note to fix that at some point, and tucked her photo into her sleeve as Keith turned around to lean against the cold steel of the fridge to drink. She noticed his gaze flick to her hands at the movement before he focused on a point on the wall. Pidge folded her arms and rested her head on them, her own attention focused on the grease beneath her fingernails. There was a part of her that wanted to jump up and run out of the room, but something kept her rooted. She wondered if she was getting tired.

It wasn’t until Keith moved that she looked up again, just in time to see the plastic cup go sailing through the air. It clattered to a stop in the sink-like basin at the other end of the room, disrupting the peaceable silence. Pidge’s scowl deepened at Keith over the sleeves of her hoodie, but his expression was unreadable. She didn’t know what irked her more, the noise or his lack of response. Keith normally liked the quiet as much as she did -- if not moreso; what was he up to?

Then suddenly Keith was moving; he stepped away from the fridge and crossed the room, heading towards her. She watched him approach with mild apprehension, arching a brow out of curiosity when he stopped in front of her, hands wrapped around the edge of the counter top. She waited a beat for him to do something. If it weren’t for the pensive look on his face, she would have thought he was half asleep. It broke a moment later when his gaze slid down to her calmly.

“I want to show you something,” he said coolly.

Oh? She had wanted to go back to her room and wrap up in a blanket, but Keith’s cryptic request piqued her interest. Pidge slid out of her chair and silently followed Keith out of the kitchen and through the winding corridors of the Castle. After a while they slipped through a doorway, and into the yawning chamber of the Lions’ hangars. Pidge wondered why they hadn’t just taken the zip-line tunnels.

The Lions sat peacefully in their respective bays, and Pidge jogged over to Green, placing a small hand on the robot’s paw with a gentle smile. Despite the cool bite of the metal, touching her Lion always filled her with with a comforting sense of warmth, a warmth that was more than welcome at that moment. Keith passed by her then, and she turned away from her robot, wanting to know why he had brought her here, of all places.

Fortunately, she didn't have to ask.

“Meet me outside.” Keith nodded to her as he walked toward his Lion.

Pidge nodded and pressed her hand back against Green’s paw, asking to go inside. A rush of warmth flooded her for a moment. Green lowered its head, jaw lowering to let her in. She jogged up the slope to the cockpit, sliding into the pilot’s chair with a sigh. The dark glass panes cleared to show her the hangar, and Green’s system data lit up the familiar electric green interface. 

Pidge turned her attention to the Red Lion, aglow and ready for takeoff. It stood pensively, head angled toward her in waiting as she brought Green alongside Red. The smaller Lion nodding its head as if to say ‘here we go’ just before launching into the expanse of space. Pidge followed quickly, inviting the distant starlight into Green’s cockpit with a smile. They soon left the castle-ship behind them, and the Lions enjoyed the liberty of open space, ducking and twisting playfully in the star-spangled darkness.

Just as Pidge began to wonder how far out they were, Keith peeled off to the right, headed towards a large green mass in the distance. Slowing as they approached, Keith lead her in a wide arc around the faintly glowing cloud. It was massive, whatever it was, and glittered softly like powdery snow on a sunny day. Her observations were cut short, however, when the Red Lion suddenly ducked into the cloud, disappearing from view.

Alarmed, Pidge flew to where Red had been and peered into the green gas. Ripples spread across the surface from the disturbance, but the Red Lion remained invisible. Shadows and pockets of denser gas swirled inside, obscuring even the bright lights of Green’s eyes. The green gas frantically billowed without warning as the Red Lion burst from inside the green cloud, coated in a layer of fine green dust. Pidge heard herself shriek in surprise at its appearance and a hand flew to her mouth in embarrassment.  
Keith’s laughter spilled through her cockpit’s intercom and she pouted, mildly annoyed. Her mouth quickly morphed into a grin, however, as an idea formed in her mind. Pidge flew the Green Lion down to the surface of the green mass, hovering gently in front of the Red Lion. She then plunged Green’s claws into the rippling dust, splashing a wave of the gas onto Red. Hearing Keith’s yelp of surprise brought a smile to her face.

As the dust settled back into the cloud, it slipped off the Red Lion like water, leaving behind another layer of the fine particles. Keith’s lion now sported an odd mix of red and green, and Pidge couldn’t help but laugh a little at its coloration. Keith’s response was to dip Red back into the murky cloud, popping back out a moment later to shower the Green Lion in a cascade of glittering dust. He laughed when Pidge swung Green’s head around to glare at him, retaliating with a swish of her Lion’s tail. It sent up a spray of green gas, further coating Red, which at this point looked more green than its given color. They both laughed, Lions swimming playfully through the water-like green cloud. Soon, both the Lions were covered in the fine green dust, their Paladins long since fallen into a fit of laughter at the sight.

***

It was late into the Castle’s night cycle when the Green and Red Lions returned to their hangars, dripping dense green gas that pooled at their feet. Pidge rose from her chair, giving the dashboard a soft pat of affection, as Green powered down. She contentedly made her way down to the hangar floor to meet Keith. At Red’s feet, he stood with his eyes closed and a hand on the Lion’s paw. When he turned to look at Pidge, she stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Keith stood stunned for a moment before gently reciprocating the gesture. 

“You’re welcome, Katie.”


End file.
